ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST (via Tom Morin)

Population To Top Out in 2023 (Park Yong-keun, 7/10/03, Chosun Ilbo)

With Korea's total fertility rate, or births per woman, dropping rapidly, experts say the nation's population will top out in 20 years and then begin to shrink.

Korea's birth rate is in a steeper fall compared with what other advanced countries have experienced, and economists say it may hurt the nation's potential for economic growth.

The National Statistical Office said Thursday that Korea's total fertility rate was at 1.30 in 2001, down from 4.53 in 1970. [...]

According to the statistical office, it will take only 19 years for Korea to move from an "aging society," when 7 percent of the population is 65 or over, to an "aged society," when 14 percent of the population is 65 or over; that compares with 115 years for France and 24 years for Japan.

Fertility rates don't decline in a glide pattern, they implode. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 10, 2003 8:55 PM